Phenomenography Relational Investigations into Modes of being-in-the-World
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Abstract
This paper introduces the notion of ‘phenomenography’. Phenomenography is an ethnographic research practice that attempts to combine practice-theoretical approaches (praxiography) to investigations of human-environment-technology relations with phenomenological perspectives on knowing and experiencing these relations. It is rooted within relational anthropology (Beck, 2008). The paper introduces a set of basic premises guiding phenomenography before relating four short empirical sequences the analyses of which suggest specific analytical sensitivities: mind, brain and body in social interaction; knowledge and experience in psychiatric treatment; reproductive technologies in shaping sociality and kinship; (digital) infrastructures’ impact on ways of being-in-the-world. The paper concludes by defining phenomenography as a collaborative research practice that aims to curate concepts jointly with research partners and that aims to provide a new form of reflexivity within anthropology.
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phenomenography, relational, practice theory, motes of being-in-the-world
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